Maxwell School Lerner Chair Shannon Monnat and team secure NIJ grant

Shannon
Monnat, associate professor of sociology and the new Lerner Chair for Public
Health Promotion, is part of a team that secured a $990,002 grant from the
National Institute of Justice for a study on impeding the illegal distribution
of opioid drugs in Pennsylvania.

The
study, titled “Identifying and Informing Strategies for Disrupting Drug
Distribution Networks: An Application to Opiate Flows in Pennsylvania,” will
provide recommendations to law enforcement agencies on how to maximize the
efficiency of disrupting the supply of opiates into communities and develop a
model for use in other jurisdictions.

Abuse
of prescription pain relievers and heroin (opiates) is a critical U.S. public
health and criminal justice policy issue. In 2015, 60% of all drug overdose
deaths were attributed to prescription opioids or heroin. Deaths from
prescription opioids and heroin have increased from 5,428 in 1999 to 31,498 in
2015.

Monnat,
who is the study’s co-principal investigator along with principal investigator
Glenn Sterner and co-principal investigator Ashton Verdery of Pennsylvania
State University, hopes that the findings from this study can inform strategies
for collaborations between police jurisdictions and local community
organizations in combating the spread of illegal drugs.

Study researchers
will analyze Pennsylvania State Police arrest and seizure data and involve community
members in focus groups and participatory mapping to identify and analyze networks
of opiate distribution, pinpoint the most common locations of sales, explore
areas for increased law enforcement attention, and identify additional
indicators associated with high and low opiate distribution neighborhoods.

Monnat
adds, “We hope to leverage the findings from this study to eventually expand
our analysis and dissemination to central and northern New York, where we have
seen recent large upticks in drug overdoses and arrests.”